Not too long ago, I was in New Orleans and while I was there, I had the opportunity to visit the National World War II Museum. I highly recommend that if you're ever in the New Orleans area, block off an afternoon to spend at the attraction. The museum is extremely informative with superb exhibits and artifacts. It's also a place that can easily sober any of the glamorous thoughts you might have had about war.
Along the walls, and included in many of the video presentations that abound in the museum, were first-hand testimonials of what various service men and women experienced in WWII. In dozens of climate-controlled display boxes, you could find many items that both our troops and enemy troops had carried into battle or had stowed away in their camps.
Needless to say, everything there enabled someone who was born over 20 years after the conclusion of the war to walk away with something of a feeling that I now knew more about the faces I had only seen in school history books.
As I walked down Andrew Higgins Drive (that's the street that borders the museum), I couldn't help but think of how all of our lives are like that museum. Oh sure, we may not have thousands of people visit each year, but you know, if someone wanted to take the time to construct it, each of our lives could be put on display just as those artifacts were...the early years, the growth, the low points, the high points, the critical junctions that determined our journey, and of course, the final days.
Actually, that kind of museum construction is ongoing in a far away place as I write this, and you're smart enough to know what I am implying. Until you draw your last breath, you can't enter this particular museum - but I bet each of us knows exactly what would be represented there for each facet of our life, both the good and the bad.
If you are now considering what would be on display are you wanting the contractor to stop construction? Are you asking for some of the artifacts to be hidden, or better yet, destroyed? Are you wanting building to be delayed until you can get things rearranged or "cleaned up?" Or, are you just hoping that no one will ever be granted admission?
Just like the National World War II Museum, this place will cast reality into glamor.
Fortunately, the contractor of the "Museum of Your Life" allows changes. He can re-adjust the spotlight over a display, and He will gladly add another exhibit that shows that artifacts of past sin and despair no longer represent the rest of your journey.
So what is in the "Museum of Your Life?" Are you ready for "Opening Day?" Are you comfortable in knowing that construction goes on day and night, and exhibits are built every day?
By the way, that contractor I spoke of?
He can also make a sign that says, "The tour ends here...Safely home."